12-14-2022 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Little Canada Preliminary Recommendations Staffing Overall staff had a positive opinion of the services that are provided to residents. Several individuals in their response noted that City services were good given the lean staff or limited resources, implying that service could be better with more staff. This is a central theme that I came across while speaking with staff who admitted doing a good job with the resources they had while acknowledging they could do better with additional staff. To address the staffing challenges at the front counter, department head workloads, and to create efficiencies, I am recommending that the City hire an additional part time Customer Service Specialist and a full time Assistant City Administrator. These two positions will benefit all city departments by either having current job responsibilities reassigned or having additional staffing resources available when the workload gets too busy or staff are out for disability, illness or vacation. Based on my discussions and review of available information, I believe that the City is currently understaffed for the work that it is doing. Both of these recommendations are further outlined below: 1)40 hours/week Assistant City Administrator to perform duties related to communications and project management Communications, which includes coordinating the quarterly newsletter, administering the City website through working with departments to add and create content, promoting the parks and administering all City social media accounts currently resides with the Parks and Recreation/Community Services Director. When these duties were initially reassigned, it was with the idea that other staff would contribute significantly minimizing the impact that it would have on the Parks and Recreation/Community Services Director. As other departments have gotten busy and workloads have increased, participation from other departments has weaned, to nobody’s fault. Not all departments are currently active with social media or communicating to the extent that they could be which some think is an opportunity for the City. Most staff are in favor of increased communications. The majority of staff agreed that the City would benefit from having a staff member with a focus on communications to assume some of the department head communication responsibilities, manage the City’s overall communication efforts and even expand communications with residents. In addition to communications, the Assistant City Administrator position would manage projects in various departments, i.e. redevelopment projects, trail enhancement projects, preparing Council recommendations on specific issues etc. depending on the need at the time. According to some staff, the City of Little Canada is behind other cities when it comes to technology and challenged by the amount of time required to research and implement new technologies or software in the workplace. This position, in addition to the other duties, would be able to lead a committee in exploring and driving these improvements to fruition in one or all departments.